


His Smile

by decaf_kitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anbu Hatake Kakashi, M/M, Missing-Nin Umino Iruka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24974521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: Iruka Umino may seem ordinary, but he's suddenly become a missing nin, abducting his student Naruto Uzumaki and thus the Nine-Tailed Fox, too.Kakashi and other ANBU are sent after them to collect Naruto and kill the chūnin teacher.They are not prepared for what they find.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 23
Kudos: 619





	His Smile

**Author's Note:**

> Who doesn't wonder about missing nin Iruka?
> 
> The Kakashi/Iruka is a missed destiny in this story.
> 
> ___

He should have been easy to hunt, to locate, to kill. The personnel file was simple, it was short. Genin at twelve. Chūnin at fifteen. No possibility of making jōnin or tokubetsu jōnin. Orphaned when both parents died in the Nine-Tailed Fox attack. Troublemaker in the following years. Personally observed by the Third Hokage through his teenage years. He and Kakashi had met twice: first on a failed mission, and second, on a bench, where Kakashi encouraged the man to mentor his troubled student, Naruto, the latest vessel for the Nine-Tailed Fox. He was easily identified by the long facial scar bisecting his face, its origin unknown and unspecified in the records. Skin brown, hair and eyes dark brown. Height and weight average. About to turn twenty-three years old.

Ordinary chūnin. Simple teacher. Not a real threat.

Still, Kakashi never underestimated Konoha’s missing nin. Sure, he was rarely intimidated by his fellow Konoha shinobi, and he definitely didn’t find anything remarkable in the man’s file, but –

Iruka Umino was smiling happy and loose in his personnel photo. He seemed friends with the photographer, seemingly joking together; his eyes sparkled in pleasure, his scar creased in joy.

Yet he had turned missing nin two weeks ago, taking Naruto Uzumaki with him during a massive manhunt for the boy that had swept through the village and the surrounding area. Not only had he attacked and murdered a fellow teacher, he’d aided and abetted in the thievery of a forbidden scroll, which had been found last week, abandoned. There was hope that Iruka wasn’t a missing nin – that this was all just one big misunderstanding – but he consistently trapped, injured, or killed any of the shinobi that got anywhere near to him and Naruto’s position. They were being tracked heading south to the Land of Waves, moving at a rapid clip, each hurried step away from Konoha signaling a deepening betrayal of the village. 

The Third Hokage demanded the return of the Nine-Tailed Fox to the village.

Konoha had no hunter-nin, but it had ANBU, and so Kakashi was sent to kill the chūnin teacher and retrieve the tailed beast and its vessel.

He said little to the other nin on their mission; they collectively understood Iruka was insignificant. They could keep pace with the lone lower-ranked nin, they could catch up with him before he hit water. There was more worry about what might happen with Naruto Uzumaki – if the Nine-Tails might escape its child body and go on a destructive rampage – but they didn’t discuss it. The hope remained it might never happen again, but Kakashi knew better than to hope for things.

He remembered Rin. He remembered Obito.

They found the missing nin on a cliff with Naruto clinging to his legs. The sight was almost touching: while Kakashi wasn’t affected, he could tell the other seven ANBU felt uneasy about it. The chūnin wasn’t smiling like in his photo. Instead, he scowled, dark and lethal, at the ANBU who’d cornered him. Not a trace of loyalty or love of Konoha remained on his face. It looked like his scar had overcome his entire countenance… like his old wound was now his entire existence. He’d amassed a few more marks on his skin in the past two weeks: bloodied bandages were wrapped around each of his limbs, and thick dirty gauze covered the jugular vein in his neck. 

The wound must have been from the other ANBU who went after him – a death strike that didn’t land right.

They’d found that ANBU team in the woods in the pursuit.

They were all dead, scorched to a crisp, warped black limbs crumbling at the slightest touch.

Iruka held one of their swords in his right hand with his entire arm noticeably shaking. He was completely focused on Kakashi, somehow correctly distinguishing him as the team leader, seemingly identifying him even with the ANBU mask. 

Although no one had yet pulled a weapon to match the missing nin’s, their intention was as clear as Iruka’s bone-deep betrayal of his people: they were here to kill him and collect Naruto.

It was equally obvious that Iruka Umino would not surrender to them.

The chūnin would not easily accept death or Naruto’s retrieval.

The Sharingan memorized the man’s stance, checked his chakra, considered possible moves. Even though Kakashi’s body ached from the hard hunt, adrenaline tasted bitter in his mouth, and his muscles cried ready and willing for whatever fight was about to be had. The other ANBU seemed similarly primed for violence with the mission of ‘get Naruto, kill the missing nin’ bouncing about their bodies and brains. They knew to grab the boy first, that Kakashi would handle the teacher. If possible, they’d shield Naruto from seeing his sensei so dealt with, but –

But if that was impossible, then so be it.

Then, unexpectedly, Naruto stepped in front of Iruka. The motion stirred the other ANBU into action, which Kakashi could not immediately stop, leading several things to occur instantaneously all at once, so he too started to move along with the roll of the moment.

As Iruka reached down for Naruto’s shoulder, the boy glowed red-orange, and the cliff cracked in a dozen places, startling the ANBU into stopping, all except for Kakashi, who flew past them, the Sharingan intent on the missing nin who was still leaning down towards his young student.

With the boy still present, the Nine-Tails half-emerged, its flaming claws appearing and digging into the cliff, ripping through dirt and rock and forcing the total separation of traitor and savior.

Iruka’s eyes were huge and shocked, scarred horror writ across his whole face. He seemed to try to shake Naruto out of it as they began to plunge backwards with the falling cliff, but – but –

As Kakashi dodged debris and tried to make the rest of the distance, the Sharingan spotted the missing nin shouting Naruto’s name - and it witnessed the teacher pull the Fox’s boy vessel to his chest like the Nine-Tails wasn’t ferociously breaking out in a reckless murderous rage.

As he skidded to a halt to avoid following the pair off the broken cliff, Kakashi just barely caught sight of the chūnin embracing Naruto against his torn, blood-splattered flak jacket… brutally but protectively.

Through the remnants of red chakra still in the air, Iruka looked up at Kakashi’s silhouette on the cliff against the blue sky as he and Naruto fell into the dark ocean. 

The missing nin’s eyes met the Sharingan.

Time slowed.

It became nothing.

A few things flickered in Iruka’s dark eyes…

Regret, guilt, sorrow. 

But they were wiped away by white-hot righteous fury that sent the Sharingan screaming high.

Iruka Umino would protect his student. He’d betray Konoha, he would kill her nin. … what had happened in the woods with him and that other teacher – what was his name? Mizuki? What lies were said to the chūnin – what punishment threatened for Naruto? What had it been like to see his student hunted? What instincts rose to the front, took over, dominated his every move?

The two crashed into the ocean.

The other ANBU stood beside Kakashi, every single one of them silent.

Watching, waiting, every one of them.

The waters went still except where it lapped the rocks, slow and languid.

Then the Nine-Tails fully appeared, the demon’s mass red and rising out of the sizzling water. The long vulpine face rose first, its black-rimmed eyes burning fixed on the ANBU on the cliff. As to be expected with such a vision, the other ANBU tensed, backing away from the edge, but –

But Kakashi did not move.

He watched.

He waited.

Ah…

… there.

The Nine-Tails Fox held one claw aloft, and excess water cascaded off its talons. The figure of Iruka Umino was small, as ordinary in death as in life, but Kakashi was fixated on the man, not the beast. He heard a subordinate say something to him, calling him from the edge, but –

But Kakashi had to see if –

Laid out flat in the demon’s claw, Iruka’s face twisted, then he flinched from head to toe. Suddenly, he was spitting up water, but the next second, he was looking around for Naruto, desperate but blinded by oceanic salt. While the chūnin’s shinobi training kicked in, Kakashi could clearly observe Iruka’s disorientation with the Sharingan. When the teacher finally recognized he was being carried by the Nine-Tails - his confusion evaporated like hot steam. 

He –

The ordinary chūnin –

Hm.

Drenched in ocean water, bandaged all over, he laughed and embraced one of the Fox’s nails.

Kakashi could not suppress the goosebumps on his skin as the Nine-Tails turned its great head, pulled up its lips over jagged teeth, and grinned down at Iruka Umino, triumphant and devoted.

Iruka’s subsequent radiant smile up towards the monster – 

It was the same one from his personnel file.


End file.
